Korean food and Taiwanese snacks.

Today Sylvia and I went to eat Korean food for Chinese Valentine's Day <3. The legend for Chinese Valentines Day is a romantic story of two lovers Zhinu the weaver maid and Niulang the cow herder. Their love was forbidden and were forced to go to the opposite side of the Silver River (the Milky Way). On the 7th day of 7th lunar month magpies form a bridge to reunite the lovers for one single day. There are many variations of this story my favorite is when Zhinu is the daughter of a God and has a forbidden love with Niulang a mortal.

This is Korean BBQ you cook the meat in the center of the table till it is ready.

Then you make a "taco" by using the lettuce to put the meat and other condiments inside of it and eat it. It tasted very good and was very spicy! Korean food is very spicy much more spicier then Mexican food.

We also ordered Korean fried rice. This is one of my favorite types of Korean food it is soooo good and super spicy!!! It was a great meal!

These are typical Taiwanese snacks you can buy at food stands almost anywhere. This is stinky tofu and some chicken on a stick. Very tasty food I really love stinky tofu now! I wish I could find it in the USA.

I also love to eat chicken hearts! They taste much better then how they look.

And this is chicken with spicy sauce its very good and very cheap.

This is a typical menu in Taiwan. Almost all restaurants you will find a sheet like this and you will mark what you want to eat and give it to the cook to make. Instead of marking numbers like we do in USA either by putting the number or using 1=I, 2=II, 3=III. In Taiwan they use the character "正". So 1= 一, 2=丁, 3=下,

Hanging out with my friend, Ivy : D

 Today I went to hang out with a friend I made online while I was in America. I had to take the MRT train to the "technology building station". I was so nervous I have never taken a train by myself before. But I was going to get over my fears and get on the train. It was a 10 minute car ride to DongHu station. There my host father showed me how to buy a ticket and read the MRT line map. I was going to take the "brown line" heading toward Taipei zoo for 14 stops. It was going to be a 35 minute train ride. So I bought the ticket and got a small coin that said "one ride coin" and past through the gate upstairs to the platform.
When I got on the train I was surprised by how little people there were on board. I then started to look around and notice that this train car is filled with women. I though,"oh no!!! I got on the train car that is only for women". I knew in Japan they had train cars for women. But in the next stop men got on the train car also so I relaxed.
Even though when I got on there was only maybe 9 people on my car about half way to my stop there must have been 40 people crammed into this train. It was so weird being so close to everyone. I finally heard the announcements for my stop. I am so glad almost everything in Taipei is writing in English under the Chinese. Even the announcements are in English. I had to push my way through a wall of people saying "bu hao yi si" till I got out of the train. I followed everyone down the stairs and put my coin inside the gate which opened and let me through. I walked to the front entrance of the station and waited for my friend Ivy to come.
I waited for a little while and then I saw Ivy. Today was very hot in Taipei and she went to change her jacket.

We walked through the campus of National Taiwan University. It was a beautiful campus. I liked how there weren't any scooters driving around.










There was a big event today at the school. They had like a Anime convention there and so many people were cosplaying. They looked like professional costumes too. There were people taking pictures with expensive cameras. We decided not to go to the convention we kept walking till we got back into the city. It was fun walking through the city I am so use to driving everywhere this was a new feeling.

We walked for a big till we got to this old looking buildings where people use to live. Now people do art in these houses. I think the temple with this tree looked beautiful. After looking at these buildings we walked around and go a little lost but found the MRT station. Ivy and me tryed
to find out where we should go next.







Ivy and me. Some how with all our walking we ended up in the red line. So we decided to take a 40 minuitte train ride to Tamsui the last stop on the red line. I bough a train card with 100NTD pre-paid in it and we were off. It was a long train and we had to stand through most of it because there were so many people on the train. I enjoyed talking to Ivy which made the train ride better.

When we got out of the train stations there were soooo many people. We walked around till Ivy turned around and said, "I am lost". haha. We asked a parking person where the river was and we walked to it. There were so many small shops selling everything you could think of.

 I really like Taiwanese sausage. I have eaten a lot of it in the South of Taiwan and have gotten use to the taste.

 Soooo many people. We went to Tamsui the most busiest day every! They have shops with Turkish men in them selling ice cream. But they make it a show by when they go to give you the ice cream he tosses it to his other hand and keeps tricking you while you try to snatch the ice cream from his hand.

This was some kind of egg snack. It tasted so good!! I want to eat more!! It only cost 35 NTD so it was super cheap.










When we were done looking at the sun setting we walked around more and I saw this random Christmas tree. It was getting late so everywhere else that we wanted to go was closing.















This is Ivy and me as the sun is going down. Everyone else was taking pictures of it. I don't blame them it was such a beautiful sight.











That is a small Island that you can take a ferry too. You can see the top of the mountain and the beautiful sky as the sun sets.

 The sun disappearing. It was so beautiful. I want to go again to see it.

We walked up a hill trying to get into some building that was built by the Spanish when they first landed in Taiwan but it was closed.












And of course food!! We ate at a hot pot restaurant. It was pretty good food. Very cheap for all the food we got. When we got done we took the "red line" all the way down and connected with the "blue line" to Grand Taipei station. Here, I borrowed Ivy's phone and called my mother to pick me up when I got to DongHu. Ivy and me said our goodbyes as she took the "brown line" to Taipei Zoo and I took the line going the other way. I had a great day with Ivy she was so nice and I hope I can hang out with her another day soon.
 

Chinese New Year's Dinner

Today we went to another city (I forgot what it was called : ( ) to eat dinner with my host mother's mother. It was about a 30 minute drive with a lot of traffic on the way like everyday. This city was much smaller then the other places I have been to. This looked A LOT like Colombia. It was weird the similarities in both countries. Here are some pictures of the city.

My mother told me that was a temple and since Chinese New Years is coming everyone is going to temple to pray and make offering to the Gods. I love the trees in the background.












We finally found a parking space!! There is very little space in these narrow roads and it is dangerous to walk because there are no sidewalks and cars and scooters come flying down the road.











This is the way up to my mother's mothers house. It is still dangerous because scooters drive though this narrow walk way. You have to use your ears to know when a scooter is coming behind you. If not the scooters are nice enough to beep at you and then yell "XIN XIAN KUAI LE"!!

I am not use what this is but it looked pretty.













Those two cars almost crashed into each other. It was sorta scary to watch.









When we got to to my mother's moms house I got to meet my moms younger brother and his wife. Everyone was so nice to me. They spoke some English but like most people in Taiwan do have a lot of trouble understanding when English is spoken. So if I wanted to talk I had to use all Chinese. I liked hearing my (host grandmother?) speaking Taiwanese. It sounds like the language they spoke in the movie "Code talkers".

Here is a picture of the temple in my host grandmothers house. It looked very pretty. We put the food under the temple before we eat it to give food to the Gods.

In this picture we give money to the Gods. We have paper money and throw it into the fire to give up as an offering. Everyone in this city was doing the same thing. It was so cool I have never heard of this before.














This is the lottery ticket cover. It is very pretty.















I bough two lottery tickets. I think the jackpot is 4 billion Taiwanese dollars : D. Everyone is buying lottery tickets so that is why the jackpot is so big! There are lines to buy these things. Each ticket cost about 50 NTD. I hope I win XD!!







My host sister playing the scratch off game. She wins just 100 NTD. She was so happy to win.













I bought this snack from the store. It is seaweed and it taste so good. I loved it so much I ate two packs! NOM NOM!!










I watched a lot of T.V here while everyone was cooking and getting ready. I think Taiwanese news is pretty cool. But Taiwanese commercials are so cute and funny. They make me laugh a lot! Soon it was time to eat!


 There was so much food!! Most of it I have no idea what it was. I just ate and ate and drank and drank till I was so full!! My host  grandmother could not speak Mandarin but she keep telling me to eat more and kept filling my bowl and glass with more food.








The chicken still has the head on it. It was so funny to watch my host uncle making it talk. The chicken tasted so GOOD! Nothing like you can find in America.









Taiwanese wine. But it was so strong I think it is liquor!













I had a lot of fun today! I really enjoyed trying all these different foods even if I don't know their English names or even if they have an English name. I was so sleepy when I got home I went straight to sleep. I could hear fireworks going off in the city all night long. But I slept so well!

Taipei Mountains and Roehe Night Market Part 2

So I though the other post was getting too long so I made two parts! After looking at all the temples we walked to the car and drove around windy and twisty mountain roads to find somewhere to eat. We found this restaurant and ordered some food there. Every time my host family orders food it sounds like an argument between them and the waiter. They start off talking slow and soft then get loud and talk very fast then relax again lol.  Here is what we ate.

 They had a little oven thing in the center of the table so you can keep your soup warm. The soup is chicken soup with many vegetables that I have never head of and my host family don't know there English name. Also there was Pineapples in the soup. Still very tasty though!

 This is eggs. Like an omlet. But it taste so much better!!!

Here is a piece of chicken! It was so tender and soft. I don't normally like chicken soup but this tasted so good. You can see in the right side of the picture my host family gave me a spoon just in case I wanted it ; ). I didn't use it lol









After eating we drove all the way down the mountain back into Taipei. The traffic was very heavy. I am glad I don't have to drive here. I think I would have ran over and hit many scooter by now. Our next stop is the Roehe Night Market.

 This is the entrance to the Nigh Market. It looks like the entrance to Chinatown in Washington D.C

 There was so many people here!! It was crowded and you bump into everyone. I guess you sorta get use to it.

 There were so many snacks to eat. And all the stalls have fans blowing the smoke in your face so everything smells so good!

 Some t-shirts that cost about $2 dollars each.

 This is a game at the Night Market. If you can catch 3 fish with a small paper net you get a free fish!! It looked very hard I saw many people lose the game.

 A cute Betta fish. They have so many!! It cost 25NTD so it is like 90 cents. It is very cheap.

This is Taiwan's version of Victoria's Secret.











More snacks!! Very small chickens

 

 This guys is making glass figurines with a blow torch. I was so amazed that you could do that. He was making a dragon. I never see this in America. Most things are made by machines in factories but this was hand made stuff.

More of the glass figurines this guy has made. 

 

Face threading

This is blood sausage. It tasted really really bad I could not eat it. BLAH!!










This was a great and fun day today!! I was so tired when I got home I could not finish the blog. I can't wait to go downstairs and eat something. I am very hungry!!